Will 


HE 


Come 


Back? 




A ONE 


ACT COMEDY 






BY 






FELIX 


GRENDON 



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Will He Come Back? 

A One Act Comedy 
By 



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Felix Grendon 



NEW REVIEW PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION 

I 1916 

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Copyright, 1916 
By FELIX GRENDON 



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Will He Come Back? 

IT is between three and five of an afternoon in 
the sitting room of a modern flat near Wash- 
ington Square. "An untrained estheticism," is 
one's offhand opinion of the room, which is deco- 
rated predominantly in blue. 

Near the middle of the back wall is a doorway- 
hung with blue curtains. Two blue and gold Chi- 
nese rugs, a lady's oak desk, a comfortable sofa, and 
a small ornamental table with papers, a magazine, 
and a cigarette case on it, are the chief articles of 
furniture. 

The desk stands at the left wall in front. Be- 
tween it and the door on the same side is an etching 
of an American girl by Paul Helleu. Three photo- 
graphs (one of a group) are on and over the mantel- 
piece on the right. Their mechanical gloss sends 
a shiver through two delicate peacock drawings by 
Clara Tice that hang on either side of the fireplace. 
Characters. 

Gilbert Sloane: At the desk sits Gilbert Sloane, 
a handsome red^-blood of 30, versed in the ways 
and dress of the clubman's world, and yet dis- 
posed to take the clubman's absorption in tremen- 
dous trifles lightly. A banker by inheritance and a 



2 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

dilettante by choice, he hides a deep dislike of 
ideas under an acquired tolerance that passes for 
liberalism. 

A taste for works of art is one of the refinements 
of his strong sensuous proclivities. Being no fool, 
he appreciates good craftsmanship, too, and goes in 
for pictures, statues, vases, women, curtains, and 
rugs — all of a fairly high grade. He is well able 
to gratify this artistic bent in all its directions, for 
he has plenty of money, and women find his robust 
physique and fastidious habits an irresistible com- 
bination. 

Edith Webber: The young lady who enters is 
fair-haired and fair-skinned, and is clothed in a 
Russian blouse dress of dark chiffon velvet. Her 
blue fox furs and large black hat would catch the 
eye of any man, if her figure, hair, and complexion 
were not beforehand. Her hair, so done up as to 
simulate a Castle cut, makes her look, offhand, like 
18 instead of 26. But she is a thing of nerves and 
tensions, with an effect of being constantly on edge, 
and her first incisive tones betray her maturer age. 

Maetha McCutcheon : Miss Martha McCutcheon 
is in the prime of her physical and at the beginning 
of her mental and moral development. Her dark 
eyes and dark hair match a costume which, though 
sober, is not severe. In repose, her features are 
plain. But interest or enthusiasm transfigure her 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 3 

face, besides releasing a vital energy that would 
strike fire in a stone. This, by the way, is easier 
than striking fire in a human being, a^ Martha, in 
the varied careers of wife, mother, and business 
woman, has learnt to her cost. And so, having 
plenty of sense, humanity, and good-humor, she is 
habitually unexpectant and self-contained. 
* * * 

(Gilbert kisses a love-note he has written, then 
reads it again. The door opens. He hastily folds 
the note and puts it in his pocket. Edith [enters in 
a towering rage.) 

Edith: At it again? 

Gilbert: (With injured innocence) What do 
you mean, Edith? 

Edith : Give me that note ! 

Gilbert: (Instinctively protecting his pocket) 
What note? 

Edith: You know perfectly well, Gilbert. 
You've just put it in your pocket. 

Gilbert: Really, my dear, I — 

Edith : Don't shilly shally. I want to see that 
note. 

Gilbert: (Retreating) Edith, there isn't the 
slightest ground for this unworthy suspicion — 

Edith: What's the use of lying? Caught you 
slobbering over it. Unless I'm much mistaken, ifs 
another appointment with Jessie Dean. 



4 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Gilbert : Oh, well, since you know all about it — 

Edith : I don't know all. That's why I insist on 
seeing the note. (She snatches at his coat pocket in 
vain.) Either you give it to me without further 
trifling, or we part forever. (She waits. He 
fidgets nervously. She turns to go out.) 

Gilbert: One moment, Edith. I give in. I'm 
afraid I can't do without it. 

Edith: (Sharply) Without what? 

Gilbert: Your galvanic temper, my dear. I 
don't say it's any fun to live with. But it jerks me 
out of the dull stagnation of everyday routine. 

Edith : Are you trying to get around me? (Per- 
emptorily) The note! 

Gilbert: (Suddenly yielding) Here it is. But 
remember this. If you read one syllable, my faith 
in your principles will be shattered forever. 

Edith : (Fingering the letter) What are you 
talking about? 

Gilbert : You profess to be a radical, don't you ? 
Your religion, you say, is the brotherhood of all 
men and women — 

Edith : Which doesn't mean the brotherhood of 
one man and all women. 

Gilbert: (Calmly ignormg tJie mtemtpti!0n) 
You object to the private ownership of land and 
capital, and even more firmly, to the private owner- 
ship of men and women. You believe that the per- 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 5 

scnal relations between two human beings should be 
sacred, and free from the intrusive prying of a 
third. How do you reconcile these beliefs with your 
consuming jealousy? 

Edith : (Pitching her voice high) My jealousy? 

Gilbert: (Lighting a cigarette for effect) Yes, 
at this very minute, what wouldn't you give to mop 
the floor with me and Jessie Dean? 

Edith : (Closing the letter without looking) So 
it is Jessie Dean? 

Gilbert: (Tantalizing her) Aren't you going 
to make sure? 

Edith : (Scornfully) You think I'm jealous of 
your flirtation with a simpering wax doll ? You flat- 
ter yourself. Keep your note. (She flings it down 
on the table. He is considerably taken aback.) 

Gilbert: Do you mean to say you're not going 
to read it? 

Edith: -I can guess what's in it pretty well: 
(Reciting) "Darling, your cheeks are like the peach- 
bloom, your tresses like the dawn." These notes of 
yours all read alike, Gilbert. Your love may be 
fickle, but your moonshine is constant. 

Gilbert: (Indignantly) I never said that to any- 
body but you. 

Edith: (Laughs derisively.) 

Gilberts (Gloomily) All this rumpus because I 
take a little excursion once in a while — 



6 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Edith: Excursion! You call a three-day jaunt 
with another woman an excursion? 

Gilbert: (In triumph) No, no. That's what 
your favorite author, H. G. Wells, calls it. Like him, 
I'm all for the sacredness and permanence of one 
chief union. You must have that as a basis, if you 
want the rich peacefulness, the large security of a 
home. But a little excursion, now and then, is 
relished by the best of men. 

Edith : Indeed. Suppose / were to act on that 
principle, and go gallivanting about with members 
of your sex? 

Gilbert: Frankly, my dear, I don't think it 
would become you. That sort of thing never be- 
comes Woman, lovely Woman. Still, I'm not old- 
fashioned. I don't stick up for the double standard 
of morality and all that sort of rot. I'm a natural 
bom varietist myself. And if a woman happens to 
take the same line, while I shouldn't think it proper 
to encourage her, I wouldn't interfere. 

Edith : All the same, I notice you are very care- 
ful not to take up with any woman that isn't scrupu- 
lously monogamous. 

Gilbert: (Airily) Oh, I won't deny that there's 
something fascinating about the constancfy of a 
woman to one man. 

Edith: And I tell you there's something dis- 
graceful about the inconstancy of a man to one 
woman. 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 7 

Gilbert: Perhaps there is. But, hang it all, 
I'm not to blame for the cells of my forefathers, am 
I ? What's bred in the bone and all that, you know. 
(He goes behind her chair and pets her indul- 
gently.) Come now, Edith, don't I love you better 
than all the others put together? The proof of it 
being that I always come back to you — always. 

Edith: (Piishing him away) Oh, yes. I'm a 
very convenient terminal station for your excur- 
sions. But I v\^on't be a convenience any longer. 
I'm through with you. {She picks up her furs and 
puts on her hat.) 

Gilbert: (Querulously) Women are positively 
mad nowadays, I can't get one of them to make a 
decent, comfortable home for me. {She walks away 
contemptuously) Look here, Edith, don't be unrea- 
sonable — 

Edith: {Turning back) I'm not. I'm merely 
monogamous. I think that having more than one 
partner at a time is filthy and indecent. And I 
won't live with anyone who doesn't agree with me. 

Gilbert: {With caustic emphasis) In other 
words you do believe in private ownership, despite 
your fine-spun theories on the freedom of love! 

Edith : {Flaring up) You needn't insult me by 
jibing at beliefs I hold sacred. Only a fool or a cad 
expects anyone to share what is intimately per- 
sonal. Do I share a toothbrush or a bathtub with 



8 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

another woman? No. Well, I won't share a nvcin 
with another woman either. 

Gilbert: You class me with your toothbrush, 
do you? Excellent! {Sardonically) Universal 
brotherhood carried to a logical conclusion, I sup- 
pose. 

{Edith's passionate intention of throwing a book 
at his head is blocked by the ringing of the telephone 
bell. She takes the receiver.) 

Edith: Yes— Yes— Miss Who? Miss McCutch- 
eon? 

{She looks suspiciously at Gilbert and repeats) 
McCutcheon? 

Gilbert : What ! {He runs to her side and whis- 
pers with bated breath) Good Lord, my wife! 

Edith : {With her hand on the mouthpiece) Your 
wife! What could she want? {Calling into the tel- 
ephone) Wait a moment. 

Gilbert: {Half to himself) So she does care, 
after all. {To Edith) You'd better let me manage 
her, Edith. 

Edith : You ! I should think not. I'll manage 
her myself. 

Gilbert: {Trying in vain to take the receiver) 
For Heaven's sake, Edith, leave it to me. {Swiftly) 
You don't know Martha. She looks as innocent and 
unassuming as a stick of dynamite. But she can 
outwit the old Nick himself. 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 9 

Edith : Then you're the last one in the world to 
deal with her. {Into the telephone) Yes, I'm all 
alone. (To Gilbert) I'm not the least bit afraid. 
Anyhow, I want to see what she's like, (hito the 
telephone again) Of course, ask her to come up, 
please. (She hangs up the receiver) And you go 
into my study where you won't be in the way. 

Gilbert : My God ! You don't know what you're 
up against. 

Edith: (Boi^tling) Do you imply that she's 
cleverer than I am? 

Gilbert: (Retreating to the study) Nothing of 
the sort, my dear. But you'll be at each other's 
hair — 

Edith : Bosh ! 

Gilbert: (Trying to assert his masculinity) An 
occasion like this requires the sagacity of a man — 

Edith : (Pushing him into the study) Go on in, 
do. She'll be here in a moment. 

Gilbert: (Projecting a final warning) You'll 
have trouble, see if you don't. I'll be close at hand, 
though, to get you out of it. 

(Edith shuts the door with a bang) 

Gilbert: (Poking his head out again) Really 
Edith— 

(The door bell rings. She stamps her foot at him 
imperiously. With an air of resigning her to a well- 
merited fate, he shuts the door. Martha comes in. 



10 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

She approaches to shake hands, but Edith antici- 
pates her.) 

Edith: (Coldly) Sit down, please, Miss — Mc- 
Cutcheon. 

Martha : (Looking around) What a pretty flat. 
Where did you get these curtains ! Beauties, I must 
say. (She tvalks over to them, and then touches the 
wall). And quite the latest thing in wall paper. 

(Edith is dumbfounded at her visitor's offhand 
behavior, yet she cannot conceal her pride of pos- 
session.) 

Edith : It's a grass-cloth. 

Martha: Stunning. Though personally, I like 
a flat wash better than a paper. It's so much 
cleaner. 

Edith : (Outraged) You haven't come here 
merely to criticise my furnishings, I presume? 

Martha: (Laughingly) Forgive me for snoop- 
ing around like this. I'm an interior decorator, you 
know. My art always gets the better of my head. Is 
Gilbert in? 

Edith: (Authoritatively) No. 

Martha: (With a sigh of relief) That's good. 
Two women can talk so much better alone. 

Edith: (Coldly) Quite so. 

Martha: (Rattling away to keep up her cour- 
age) A man is a most disturbing factor when 
women have serious business in hand. He affects 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 11 

to despise us for paying him too much attention. 
But what happens if we forget him for the least lit- 
tle while? He prances furiously all over the shop 
until we notice him again. And so we do notice him. 
It ruins work, but it's the only way to keep him 
quiet. 

Edith: (With studied moderation) Would you 
mind telling me what you came about? 

Martha: About Gilbert, of course. 

Edith : I can guess what you want. 

Martha: (Dubioiisly) Oh, can you? That 
would simplify matters immensely. (They sit 
down) It's nearly a year ago now since Gilbert left 
me. 

Edith : Yes, I know. 

Martha: (Disjointedly) And, of course, I've 
had my business and the two children to look after. 

Edith: (With forced sympathy) I can quite 
understand how you feel. 

Martha: (With real sympathy) I dare say you 
can. He's the same Gilbert, that's easy to see. 

Edith : (Politely) I don't quite know what you 
mean. 

Martha: A decorator gets used to sizing up 
souls as easily as interiors. If you want to catch 
a man's soul off guard, study the colors, arrange- 
ments, and decorations of his living room. The high 
lights and the low, the harmonies and the discords 



12 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

— they are so many revelations, trumpet-tongued. 
Edith: What are you driving at? 

Martha: Look at this mantelpiece. Above, a 
picture of Gilbert and his Sunday School classmates. 
On the right of that Satsuma vase a photo of his 
mother, on the left, a photo of — of you, I judge? 

Edith : Yes. 

Martha: Well, the mantelpiece in my sitting 
room is just like this one. The same Satsuma vase, 
the same Sunday School picture, the same photos — 
except that the one on the left is a photo of m.e. 
And the same graceful Adam desk, the same vo- 
luptuous curtains, the same gay disorder in the dis- 
tribution of things. In short, the same jaunty, 
sensuous, harum-scarum, sentimental, materialistic 
Gilbert. 

Edith : (Menacingly) Whatever his faults may 
be, I won't have him abused in my presence. He is 
my best friend. 

Martha: (Affecting solemnity) He is the father 
of my children. 

(Edith, too angry to catch th^e irony of the situa- 
tion, is slightly overawed by the conventional al- 
lusion.) 

Edith : (Defiantly) That gives you a claim upon 
his purse, a claim that has, I believe, been amply 
recognized. But it gives you no lasting claim upon 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 13 

his love. Love yields to no law save its passionate 
need of fulfillment. 

MARTHA: (Relieved) Why didn't you say so 
before, my dear? (She goes over to Edith) Now 
that I know you love him passionately, nothing will 
be simpler than to straighten out this perplexing 
business. But you must help me. 

Edith : Help you ! 

Martha : Yes. Help me to help Gilbert ; help rne 
to save him from this wasteful life of philandering. 

Edith: (Going up to her fiercely) I know very 
well what your game is. But you are wasting your 
time. You can't persuade me to give him up. 

Martha: Persuade you to give him up! My 
dear Miss Webber, I came here to persuade you to 
keep him. 

Edith: What! 

Martha: Yes. We've misunderstood each other 
completely. Come, let's sit down and talk it over 
like friends. 

(They both sit down on the sofa.) 

Edith : (Suspiciously) Why do you want me to 
keep him? Do you dislike him? 

Martha: Does anyone dislike him? You know 
his personal charm and fascinating ways. Unfor- 
tunately, there is one way he treads too often. 

Edith: What way? 

Martha : The way of a man with a maid. 



14 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

{Edith is shocked without quite knowing why. 
She tries to express the sentiment with greater pro- 
priety.) 

Edith : You mean his weakness for excursions ? 
Martha: Exactly. Of course, he always came 
back. 

Edith : Just as he does with me ! I understand 
perfectly how you must have felt. His low taste for 
polygamy filled you with disgust. 

Martha : Oh, hardly that. 

Edith: {Severely) Do you mean to say you ac- 
cepted his infidelities without a murmur? 

Martha: {Apologetically) Well, his nature was 
different from mine. 

Edith : Bah ! When a woman makes that ancient 
excuse for a man, she discredits her sex. What's 
more, she injures him more than she does herself. 
Just look at his actions. He's been a cad to you and 
a beast to me, hasn't he? Well, all this suffering is 
the consequence of your criminal indulgence. 

Martha: I'm very sorry. But consider, when 
two people have been married a year or so, their 
relations become those of a brother and sister. 
Why, then, should I begrudge Gilbert a love affair 
once in a while? I could have had several myself 
for all he cared. 

Edith: Well, did you? 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 15 

Martha : No, I was too busy. I had two children 
to look after and I was up to my ears in my business. 
No leisure, no love. When a man is in love with you, 
he runs through your time like a spendthrift through 
a fortune. He won't hear of what he calls a divided 
loyalty. And all your business must hang fire, while 
you remain at his beck and call. Now I dropped my 
business once, when I first met Gilbert. But I don't 
think I shall ever drop it again. Work like mine is 
fascinating ; there is no end to its change and vari- 
ety. But what is the difference between one lover 
and another? Like the difference between one sea- 
shore resort and another. The company changes a 
trifle, but the ocean is the same. 

Edith : What was the matter between you and 
Gilbert? 

Martha : He was. When he was home, he inter- 
fered with my work a good deal; when he wasn't 
home, he interfered a good deal more. 

Edith : That sounds like a hopeless contradiction. 

Martha : But it isn't. You see, he'd meet a new 
flame, pass into a state of exaltation, and off he'd go. 

Edith : {Recalling her own wrongs) He goes off 
still, thanks to your training. 

Martha : Please don't heap coals of fire. 

Edith : {Rubbing it in) There's his latest. {She 
shows her the note to Jessie Dean. Martha has seen 



16 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

too many notes of the same import to be curious 
about this one.) 

Martha : (Gesturing a refusal to read it) I know 
it by heart. But what can we do about it? Gilbert 
is built like that. Some men and women take to sex 
the way others take to drink or stamp collecting. 
It becomes a sport or a hobby with them. I simply 
didn't take Gilbert's hobby too seriously, though his 
goings-off and comings-back were very trying, espe^ 
cially his comings-back. 

Edith : Then you were always glad to get rid of 
him? 

Martha: Strangely enough, no. When he was 
away, I couldn't get him off my mind. You know 
what babies men are, how easily they sicken, and 
how wretched they get away from home. Well, I 
felt that I had pledged myself to look after him. My 
conscience kept whispering to me that perhaps niy 
business and domestic interests had driven him 
away, and that he might be in the hands of some 
unscrupulous female, uncared for, unhappy, his 
health gone to rack and ruin. 

Edith : (Condescending to so much simplicity) 
Gilbert unhappy! You are easily taken in. Trust 
him to put himself in clover every time. 

Martha: One never knows. Anyhow, see for 
yourself whether my anxiety was groundless. After 
each absence, he'd come back with a woeful story of 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 17 

disillusionments and misadventures. You can imag- 
ine the details: his late partner had disclosed a 
bushel of faults, her features had begun to pall, and, 
what was worse, her conversation was trite, her 
jealousy unendurable, their joint bickerings endless, 
and so on. Romance had got another black eye. 
Sometimes Gilbert himself had got one. 

Edith: Serve him jolly well right, the heartless 
brute! Fancy forcing you to listen to accounts of 
his sordid infatuations! 

Maktha: He didn't force m.e. I listened will- 
ingly. 

Edith: What! 

Martha: Oh, it was fun and instruction com- 
bined. You've no idea how much we learn of squalid 
reality from the history of a romance told by one of 
the principals. The whole history, inside out, from 
first to last. For Gilbert told me everything, every- 
thing without reserve. What else could he do? He 
had to pour his heart out to somebody, poor fellow. 
And who was half so interested in him as I was? 
Nobody. Besides, he often needed advice which he 
couldn't get from anyone but me. 

Edith : Advice from you ! 

Martha : Yes. I could tell him exactly how far a 
girl meant to go when she said yes, or how little she 
meant to withhold when she said no. 



18 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Edith : Am I to believe that you actually encour- 
aged him to be unfaithful ? 

Martha: Dear, no. Again and again I pointed 
out that philandering is bound to defeat its owii pur- 
pose, that it is a game in which you always want 
what you can't get, and always get what you don't 
want. 

Edith : Why didn't you get a divorce ? 

Martha: And leave him utterly unprotected? 
No. With his reckless passion for making love, 
think of the women into whose clutches he might 
have fallen ! My conscience balked at such base 
desertion. I felt that I had to hold on, until some 
competent woman with a firmer hand than mine 
should be willing to take my legal place. Only then 
could I resign him without a sense of shirking a 
responsibility I had assumed with open eyes. 

Edith: (Uneasily) Why do you tell me all this? 

Martha: Because you are the first woman to 
whom I'm sure he can safely be confided. 

Edith : I'm not so sure of that. 

Martha: He never stayed so long with any of 
the others. He's been with you a whole year, 

Edith: Yes. And already he treats me as if I 
were his wife. Goes on excursions and comes back 
impenitently, just as he did with you. 

Martha: If you married him, you could change 
all that. 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 19 

Edith: Judging by present results, could I do 
better than you did? 

Martha : You forget, I had my business. 

Edith: (On her high horse again) And I have 
my pride. 

Martha: But you love him. No, it's useless to 
protest. You showed your real feelings plainly 
when you supposed I had come to wrench him away 
from you. Let's prove that women can show com- 
mon sense about an affair of sex companionship. 
You love him; I don't. You're domestic; I'm not. 
You can manage men; I can't. What can I offer 
Gilbert? Little beyond my sympathy and my sense 
of obligation. What can you offer him? The three 
things he most needs : Love, a home, and protection. 

Edith: Protection! He's a man, not a molly- 
coddle. 

Martha: He's a red-blood, and needs protection 
against the unhappy consequences of his philander- 
ing. -■'-'«' ^"^ 

Edith : {Resentfully) How do you know he's so 
unhappy? As far as I can see, he's having the time 
of his life. 

Martha: Oh, no, you're quite mistaken. Recall 
with what dejection he returns from each of his 
adventures. Miss Webber. 

Edith : By the way, how did you learn my name 
— and where we lived? 



20 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Martha: Didn't Gilbert tell you? He ran right 
into me in the Pennsylvania Station yesterday. 

Edith : And blurted out everything, I suppose. 

Martha: He made a clean breast of it. I'm 
afraid it's automatic with him now. 

Edith : The unspeakable cad ! To betray my holi- 
est confidences to a stranger. 

Martha: (Quizzically) It was only his wife. 

Edith : (Lashing herself into a frenzy) The 
very last person a gentleman should have confided 
in. I see it all now. This is a put-up job. You 
want to get this man off your conscience. And you 
hope I'll be fool enough to oblige you by marrying 
him. You expect me to take your place, to become 
a sort of human phonograph receiving the records 
of his endless love affairs. Never. You've come to 
the wrong shop. 

Martha: Don't be absurd. He may be on my 
conscience. But he's on your hands, isn't he? He's 
a solid human problem. And you can't wash that 
off your hands any more than I can wash it off my 
conscience. 

Edith: (Defiantly) Can't I though? 

Martha: (With concise determifiation) No. We 
can't both abandon him at the same time. What 
would become of him ? You must face that. 

Edith: (At the top of her lungs) I won't face 
anything. I won't be dictated to. I 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 21 

(The door opens, and Gilbert enters, cigarette in 
hand. Has he overheard the conversation about 
himself? If so, he cannot have caught its drift. For 
he struts between the two women as a cock struts 
betiveen two jealou& hens, flattered, but determined 
to stop their bickering.) 

Gilbert: You really mustn't quarrel about me, 
girls. I'm not worthy of it. 

Edith : Look here 

Martha : But we 

Gilbert: (Persuasively) There, what did I tell 
you, Edith? I knew I'd have to interfere. Calm 
down now, and I'll divide myself in half to oblige 
you. 

Edith : Oblige us ! You can multiply yourself by 
ten for all we care. 

Gilbert: We! 

Martha : Yes, we're both agreed — that some one 
must take care of you. 

Gilbert: Magnificent thoughtfulness. (With 
irony) And would it be too much to ask which of 
you the fair savior is to be? 

Edith : (Snappily) Neither. 

Gilbert : Then what on earth were you wrangling 
about me for? 

Martha: (Apologetically) I was doing my best 
to induce Miss Webber to take care of you perma- 
nently. > 



22 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Edith : And Miss Webber was doing her best to 
decline the job with thanks. 

Gilbert: (The truth dawning on him) You 
might both wait until you're asked. A fine pass the 
world has come to when two women dispose of a 
man behind his back. 

Martha: What could we do? We both feel re- 
sponsible for you, I legally, and Edith morally. 

Gilbert: Really, Martha, you amaze me. 

Martha : Why ? 

Gilbert: {Appealing to High H\eaven) V/hy! 
Good God, she asks me why! {Facing her) Is 
this a fit place for a woman to meet her husband in, 
for the sole purpose of discussing their private do- 
mestic affairs? 

Martha : What's fit for the gander is fit for the 
goose. Now sit down, and let's all be reasonable 
together. 

Gilbert : Impossible. 

Edith : And worse than useless. 

{Nevertheless they follow Martha's commanding 
lead and take chairs.) 

Martha: The trouble with you, Gilbert, is that 
you don't appreciate a good home. 

Edith : {Pessimistically) No man does. 

Gilbert: Oh, doesn't he? That's where you 
women are completely off the track. A man loves 
his home every bit as much as a woman, perhaps 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 23 

more. To be sure, he's not always bragging about 
it, fussing over it, or giving parties in it. But he 
works for it, he even marries for it. 

Edith : If only for the pleasure of running away 
from it. 

Gilbert: Quite so. But that's only for the joy 
of coming back to it. 

Edith: (Sarcastically) Or possibly for the fun 
of confessing your troubles over it to Martha. 

Gilbert: (To Martha) What, you've actually 
given me away? Told her all I told you about her? 
{He gestures to some one, God perhaps, to witness 
his wrongs.) This comes of baring one's soul to a 
woman. (Confronting Martha) You have betrayed 
my confidence, violated my deepest trust, destroyed 
my faith in friendship. Tattle-tale, no, tattie-snake, 
viper! But what can one expect? Give a woman 
enough rope and she'll hang her best friend. 

Martha: (Unmoved) You are forgiven, Gil- 
bert. We know that your outbursts of blame mean 
just as little as your outbursts of praise. When 
things go wrong, you call me a viper. When they 
go right you tell me that "my cheeks are like the 
peach-bloom, my tresses like the dawn." 

Edith: (Jumping up angrily) What, he said 
that to you, too? 

Martha : Hundreds of times. 



24 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Edith : And to hundreds of women, I dare say. 
Blackguard, deceiver! 

Gilbert: The charge of deception comes with 
poor grace from your lips, Edith, or from Martha's 

either. You both married me — 

Edith : {Snavpily) Excuse me, I saved you from 
adding bigamy to your other crimes. 

Gilbert : Well, 3-011 both lived v/ith me, then, un- 
der false pretenses. 

Maetha: {Good humoredly) Here's news! 

Edith: {Indignantly) What next, I wonder! 

Gilbert: My understanding with each of you 
was that I was to get a home, a woman to take care 
of it, and my personal freedom. 

Martha: Man wants but little here below. 

Gilbert: {Savagely) I asked no more than 
every man of my generation was brought up to ex- 
pect. 

Martha: Can you deny that I gave you your 
freedom ? 

Gilbert: My freedom, yes, but what about my 
home? You were so busy decorating the interior 
of other people's houses that you had no time for 
the interior of your own house. You cared for my 
peace of mind. But as for my comfort in body, you 
positively encouraged me to seek that outside. 

Martha: But you always came back. 

Gilbert: No thanks to you. For when I told you 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 25 

of my love affairs (mostly fictitious at first), you 
didn't mind them a bit. You actually seemed to 
enjoy hearing the details. As I live, you egged me 
on to bring you news of more and more lively 
adventures. It was unwifely. It was indecent. It 
was downright immoral. 

Maktha: (Blushing) Nonsense, Gilbert, your 
exaggerations are perfectly monstrous. 

Gilbert: Not in the least. You quite forgot 
that one touch of jealousy makes the whole 
world kin. You forgot everything a wife should 
remember. That was what turned our home into 
a mockery of its name. It ceased to be a home. It 
became a hotel. And not even a comfortable one 
at that. 

Edith : Well, surely / made a home for you. 

Gilbert: A home? You mean a prison. Mar- 
tha, at least, was satisfied with my constant spirit- 
ual presence. But you, radical though you pro- 
fessed to me, demanded my constant physical pres- 
ence. 

Edith : (Flaring up) When a woman goes to 
the extraordinary pains of making a first-class 
home for a man, the least she can expect is that 
the man shall be in it. Those are my terms. Take 
them or leave them. 

Gilbert: I shall leave them, thanks. I won't be 
a peg for one woman to hang her passion for busi- 



26 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

ness on, or another woman her passion for owning 
a man. The cells of my forefathers rebel against 
so ignominious a choice. 

Martha: Very natural of them, too, Gilbert. 
But don't forget we've inherited the cells of your 
forefathers, too. 

Gilbert: What of that? 

Martha: Only this. That our forefathers im- 
posed on the world the type of woman that suited 
them. Well, we have inherited this imposing trait. 
And we are about to impose on the world a type of 
woman that will suit us. 

Edith : Yes. We've advanced a bit, you see. 

Gilbert: Advanced? Look here, Edith. You 
pick up amorous tid-bits in Greenwich Village, at- 
tend lectures on Birth Control, keep a bachelor flat, 
read the Spoon River Anthology, and give your 
hair a Castle cut. But do you know what the wo- 
men in the Oneida Community did, seventy years 
ago? 

Martha: (Eagerly) No, do tell us. 

Gilbert: (Shocked) I beg to be excused. But 
they did all these stunts and a good many more. 

Edith: Well? 

Gilbert: Yet you call yourself advanced. Ad- 
vanced! Lord, you've said it. You are an ad- 
vanced woman of the period of President Polk, 
model 1847. 



WILL HE COME BACK f 27 

Edith : If I were a man, I'd wring your neck. 
You, who coolly demand a wife, a home, and none 
of the responsibilities that go with these advan- 
tages, of what period are you? 

Martha: (Coming between her and Gilbert) Of 
every period, age, and climate, my dear. Nov/ do 
be sensible, both of you. (She separates the^n.) 
You two v/ere simply made for each other. 

Gilbert : Rot. You'd have to go far and search 
long to find a worse case of incompatibility of tem- 
per. 

Martha: My dear Gilbert, incompatibility of 
temper is the basis for the happiest marriages I 
know of. When a husband and wife disagree tact- 
fully, marriage becomes a life-long adventure. On 
the other hand, too complete a sympathy and too 
great a community of spirit are death to marital 
joy. That was the trouble with us. We were 
agreed on everything, including your right to occa- 
sional changes of sex companionship. What was 
the result of this perfect but tedious agreement? 
Alarums on my part, excursions on yours. 

Gilbert: {Stirred to the depths) Don't shift 
the blame on me. You broke the spirit of our bond, 
even if I broke the letter. Why, you actually de- 
fended my conduct yourself. Wasn't it your doc- 
trine that marriage is a pattern to which 57 varie- 
ties of people cannot be fitted? It is an immoral 



28 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

doctrine, one you should never have preached. 

Martha: You had already practised it, Gilbert. 
And it was much simpler to fit a doctrine to you 
than to fit you to a doctrine, for I couldn't very well 
redecorate your passions. Besides, you can't have 
your cake and eat it too. 

Gilbert: How do you mean? 

Martha: You want a home, I believe? 

Gilbert : Decidedly. 

Martha: Everybody does, especially men. And 
you don't want to be tied for life to one companion ? 

Gilbert: Decidedly not. 

Martha: Nobody does, not even women. What 
people desire, however, is a long cry from what 
they can get. Your practical choice, Gilbert, is 
between a home if you are faithful, and a hotel if. 
you are not. 

Gilbert: (Flippantly) To be inconstant is not to 
be unfaithful. 

Martha: I don't pretend to understand these 
fine distinctions. All I know is that you can't have 
an old-fashioned home run by a new-fangled wo- 
man. Indeed, you can hardly induce any modern 
woman to feed, serve, nurse, and worship a man 
in the good old style. And I must say I think it is 
extremely lucky for you that Edith is willing to 
make the sacrifice, even if she asks you to recog- 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 29 

nize that the burning question in such a domestic 
arrangement is not: "What is home without a 
woman?" but "What is home without a man?" 

Gilbert: Ah, Martha, your logic would be irre- 
sistible if you were speaking for yourself — 
Martha: I'm speaking for all three of us — 
Edith: Oh, don't urge him, Miss McCutcheon. 
There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out 
of it. 

Gilbert: There are. {He picks wp the note to 
Jessie Dean, and flourishes it.) Thanks for the re- 
minder. A hotel is better than a prison, anyhow. 
Good-by, Martha. 

(He is out of the room, almost before they can 
stir. Martha, who has not reckoned on this climax, 
dashes after him — too late.) 

Martha: But, Gilbert — 

Edith : (Bitterly) Don't worry about him. He'll 
have the face to come back, as usual. 

Martha: (Anxiously) I know. But to which 
one? 

Curtain. 



30 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

[The publishers append the following letter with 
the consent of the author, who declines to comment 
on it, except to say that he leaves it to the reader 
to judge between him and the lady.] 
To the Editor of the New Review : 

Dear Sir: A friend of mine has just sent me a 
copy of your April number containing the witty one 
act play. Will He Come Back? Before I had read 
three pages of the comedy, I had the strange sensa- 
tion of meeting myself in cold print. You have no 
idea how it startled me. It was like viewing myself 
in a concave mirror, or reading my own epitaph on a 
tombstone. There simply was no doubt that the plot 
was a record of an actual experience in which I had 
been one of the principals. And it was only too evi- 
dent that the young author (who has the entree to 
my house) had converted his knowledge of this ex- 
perience into the action of a play. 

Now I do not object to his having done so. On 
the contrary, I am rather flattered at the attention. 
What I do object to is the fairy-tale atmosphere he 
has put into a picture that requires the pitiless real- 
ism of a Hogarth. Twenty years ago, the topic of 
sex was not considered fit for serious discussion in 
decent company. It was still an inexhaustible mine 
for the innuendoes of musical comedy, whilst tal- 
ented people dismissed it as a stupendous joke or 
used it as a peg for daring epigrams. The men and 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 31 

women of our generation have changed all this. 
Prudery has followed its hand-maid pruriency out 
of the pale of intelligent society. And inspired 
writers like Bernard Shaw have blazed an open way 
in literature for a genuinely artistic treatment of the 
relations between persons of opposite sex. 

Who would care to double upon these tracks? 
Certainly no woman who grew up as I did under the 
malignant policy of silence. No. Women with faith 
in the coming freedom of women are so happy to 
find the subject of sex at least as earnestly consid- 
ered as the subject of cards or complexion that they 
will resist with ferocity any attempt to mask or 
glorify it under a double entendre, an epigram, or a 
halo. 

Pray do not suppose that I accuse your playwright 
of using the theme of sex as a mere anvil from which 
to strike dazzling sparks of wit. Whatever his lapses 
in this direction, it is clear that his intentions were 
honorable and that his purpose was at bottom seri- 
ous. But what has he achieved? Fortune made him 
a present of a situation from which an adept could 
have manufactured no end of valuable ammunition 
for the Woman's Movement. Alas, he draws quite 
lame conclusions from quite sound premises, hands 
the spectator a problem tied up with a question mark 
instead of a frank solution, and reads the wildest 
and most distracting inventions into the characters 



32 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

of his three persons. The result is that he spoils the 
point of the whole episode, and materially impairs 
the value of his contribution to the very movement 
I assume he wishes to help. 

Let me begin my instances with his sketch of my 
own person and character. I modestly pass over the 
ingenuity with which he describes me as plain and 
then represents plainness in me as more fascinating 
than beauty in other women. (None of the men I 
know agree with his description, none of the women 
with his representation.) But you may remember 
that he treats me throughout the play as an ascetic, 
that is, as a woman who has suppressed her own 
sexual life and is so indifferent to her husband's, that 
she is anxious to be rid of him altogether. It does 
not matter whether you regard an ascetic as a defec- 
tive or as a voluptuary, as one with a subnormal 
equipment of sex energy or as one who takes refuge 
from the passion of desire in the passion of self- 
denial. I protest that I belong in neither class. I am 
every inch a woman. And as for self-denial, I prac- 
tise it sparingly, as all the restrictive virtues should 
be practised. 

Of course, I know that some women "swear off" 
from sex the way some men swear off from drink 
when they take the pledge. And I sympathise from 
the bottom of my heart with women who are driven 
to this step by the misconduct of a brutal husband or 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 33 

by the torments of frustration. Still, I cannot hold 
up celibacy as a desirable working- principle of con- 
duct, for it is obvious that its universal adoption 
would put an end to the human species. None the 
less, I notice that its vogue as an ideal is growing. 
Male authors are doing no little to stimulate this 
growth. Where the chaste heroine of the Nineteenth 
Century was painted as being "innocent" of all sex 
experiences, the love-defying heroine of the Twen- 
tieth Century is painted as rising superior to them. 
This illusion deceives many, although clandestine 
irregularities are on the increase, and although it is 
nearly as rash to assume that every unmarried 
woman is chaste as that every chaste man is unmar- 
ried. Celibacy, in short, bids fair to become the 1920 
version of "purity," just as chastity was the 1890 
version. And man, with his truly touching egotism, 
will soon be recommending the new purity (to the 
women he is himself unable to marry) precisely as 
his forefathers imposed chastity on the superfluous 
spinsters of former generations. 

In behalf of modern women, therefore, I think it 
necessary to insist that I am not a born neuter like 
Betsy Trotwood, nor a born matchmaker like Lady 
Cicely in Captain Brassbound's Conversion. Both 
these ladies were warranted love-proof. But who 
will deny that Betsy was just a delightful personifi- 
cation of the womanly side of Dickens, being neither 



34 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

more nor less of a female than Fiona McLeod? As 
for Lady Cicely, frankly, I don't believe in her. I 
think we shall have to repudiate her as a romantic 
illusion created by a noble writer in a fit of revul- 
sion against the distracting bother of concupiscence. 
For I have yet to meet a woman who never 
was in love. On the other hand, I have known men 
(and I will not say that your author is one of them) 
who betrayed so-perfect an ignorance of love's symp- 
toms and revelations that it may well be that their 
first-hand experience of the emotion amounts to an 
airy nothing. 

I hope to make clear why, in all sincerity, I cannot 
sponsor the Betsified picture of me in Will He Come 
Back? It is quite true that people are under the 
spell of a low and tedious moving-picture morality 
that assigns sexual love as the sole motive for a 
woman taking a man and sexual hatred as the sole 
motive for her leaving him. Yet the exact reverse is 
frequently the case. As many women nowadays will 
surrender their husbands from love as will stick to 
them from hatred. But even assuming that love is a 
part of all we do, surely it is seldom the chief part. 
We are slov/ to learn the lesson that sages from Con- 
fucius to Ruskin have tirelessly repeated, and that 
is that love is of man's life (and woman's too) a 
thing apart, since it occupies but a fragmentary por- 
tion of any healthy person's existence. My own be- 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 35 

lief as to the best practise in this matter is very sim- 
ple. All sensible human beings should take such 
love as comes their way, never deliberately pursuing 
it to the neglect of their own salvation or the work 
of the world. If the man and the woman meet the 
irresistible moment, let them seize it; for, as Mrs. 
Juno in Bernard Shaw's OveiTuled pointedly asks, 
how could they ever forgive themselves if they let 
the moment slip ? 

Holding these views, I cannot lay claim to the 
asceticism with which the author of the play seems 
to endow me. Indeed, I fail to see the point of this 
endowment. For were I really an ascetic, my atti- 
tude towards the relations between Gilbert and 
Edith v/ould be hardly more illuminating than a tea- 
hater's attitude towards a cup of Formosa oolong. It 
is precisely because I am an altogether normal mem- 
ber of my sex that my conduct gives a clue to the 
changing sex morality of our time and illustrates a 
new way in which women are feeling and acting 
towards men. Before I can drive this home, I must 
say a few words about the character sketches of 
Edith and Gilbert. 

Edith's father was a rich but respectable stock- 
broker who brought her up as a lady, that is, as a 
female trained in nothing but the art of pleasing and 
teasing men by turns. So much she owed to her 
father. When he failed in business, she commercial- 



36 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

ized her one talent, her physical charm, and became 
a model for painters and sculptors in Greenwich Vil- 
lage. She had inherited a passion for respectability, 
but this was about as useful to an artist's model as a 
pair of fins to a bird. It had no currency in the 
studio, where the master was always ready with a 
tempting offer to her to exploit her sex. So much 
she owed to her employers. When the men she en- 
countered professed friendship, their disinterested- 
ness went just so far but no farther. Beyond their 
lip politeness, she found locked doors barring the 
way to every opportunity, and she noticed that a sex 
favor was the only key. So much she owed to her 
men friends. In time, she learned that her future 
was narrowed to a choice of becoming a rich man's 
darling or a poor man's slave. The fact that the 
second alternative was gilt-edged with a marriage 
certificate did not make slavery the more attractive. 
So she accepted the first alternative. Let father, 
employer, friend, or any man without guilt or ccwm- 
plicity in the social system that devotes a whole sex 
to the gratification of desire, cast the first stone. 

But if the author's picture of Edith is unsympa- 
thetic, what shall I say of his picture of Gilbert? It 
is, to put it mildly, not a picture at all, but a carica- 
ture. Nor is the reason for the distortion far to seek. 
Gilbert is a red-blood ; the author (like most authors) 
is a mollycoddle. I use the latter term in no invidi- 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 37 

ous sense. Red-bloods are men like Grant, Bismarck, 
Roosevelt; mollycoddles, men like Blake, Shelley, 
Emerson. When I met Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson on 
his recent visit to New York, he talked to me in his 
delightful way about this very matter. He pointed 
out that women choose red-bloods for their mates, for 
the fathers of their children, for their idols; and 
mollycoddles for their companions, for their spiritual 
comforters, for their slaves. Now no red-blood ever 
envies a mollycoddle, yet almost any mollycoddle will 
envy a red-blood. Isn't this rather strange when you 
compare the superficial and cursory part that the 
red-blood plays in a woman's life with the deep and 
constant part that the mollycoddle plays? Every 
red-blood has his day among women, it is true. But 
every mollycoddle passes his whole career among 
them. (Indeed, who but women discover, advertise, 
and champion him?) Yet no mollycoddle ever quite 
forgives the red-blood his transitory day. I do not 
know why this is so. And I mention the phenomenon 
merely by way of accounting for the gross uncharit- 
ableness of the sketch of Gilbert in the comedy. 

Were Gilbert the selfish cad and frivolous trifler he 
is painted, could I possibly have loved him or wasted 
two thoughts on his domestic perplexities ? I do not 
deny that he was a philanderer or that he looked on 
every attractive woman as David looked on Bath- 
sheba. That is a side of him I neither admire nor 



38 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

defend. Still, as it is only a side, it is quite as unfair 
to pretend it is the whole of him as it would be to 
pretend that bristling pugnacity is the whole of Mr. 
Roosevelt. 

In any case, it was not Gilbert's fault that he 
combined the appearance of a matinee idol with the 
intense physical constitution of a Tom Jones, so 
that he was a magnet for women of all ages from 7 to 
70. After he had done his morning's work in Wall 
Street (and he was most punctilious in the discharge 
of his business engagements) , he had a large store of 
surplus energy to dispose of. Nature gave him no 
specific creative talent to cultivate, and so we must 
conclude that she intended him to use this surplus 
energy for fatherhood. But in our inefficient society 
there is actually less room for a man with a talent 
for fatherhood than for a woman with a talent for 
motherhood. They managed these things better 
3,000 years ago. When a nation discovered a mag- 
nificent red-blood like Solomon, they saw to it that 
he provided the state with at least two hundred chil- 
dren. Contrast this with our utilization of Gilbert 
who, splendid example of manhood that he is, has 
only two. 

What a loss to the community! Yet the play- 
wright takes absolutely no thought of this loss, as is 
clear from his open sneer at Gilbert's dilletante 
efforts in art. What, I ask him, would he have had 



WILL HE COME BACK? 39 

the poor man do with his superabundant bodily pow- 
ers ? Had Gilbert followed the Biblical tradition, he 
might have had children by different mothers, but 
then the fear of Mrs. Grundy would have driven him 
to leave them, as Rousseau did, to the care of orphan 
asylums, or, as many of our idle millionaires do, to 
the carewornness of unmarried mothers. Not being 
cruel or unscrupulous, he avoided this underground 
dilemma. And thereby he, no less than the State, 
was a decided loser. In the absence of socially con- 
structed avenues for the legitimate expression of the 
procreative function Nature had bestowed on him, he 
became that pathetic object, a dabbler in affairs of 
passion and an amateur in affairs of art. 

All this I had in mind when, after nearly a year's 
separation, I met Gilbert in the Pennsylvania sta- 
tion. And here I am forced to say that your author 
depicts this meeting with rather less than his usual 
cleverness. Apparently he was quite overcome at 
the thought that I received Gilbert's tale of woe, not 
with the jealous venom that wives are popularly 
supposed to exhibit on such occasions, but with the 
genuine human concern that one intimate friend 
habitually feels for another. At all events, he re- 
veals the situation with the air of offering the audi- 
ence a stupendous surprise, from which I take it that 
it has never struck him before that a man is gener- 
ally rescued from his sexual entanglements by some 



40 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

woman (a husband almost always by his wife). I 
invite him to notice that this, in fact, is the corollary 
to the vulgar Nineteenth Century formula of "cher- 
chez la femme," and I cheerfully make him a present 
of the idea for his next play. 

To return to the Pennsylvania station. After un- 
burdening himself of his plight, Gilbert went on his 
way, relieved but not rejoicing. As for me, I con- 
sidered what was to be done for the three lives that 
had come unavoidably into collision. I realized that 
we were people of very decided individualities and 
of very different needs and dispositions. There was 
Gilbert, wasting himself in aimless liaisons because 
of a thwarted parental instinct ; Edith, wasting her- 
self in making a fetish of one man, because of a 
vicious education and a thwarted maternal instinct; 
and me, unwilling to waste myself in marital rap- 
prochements, for if the management of my business 
and the care of my children were already too ab- 
sorbing to leave time for sex and its fugitive en- 
chantments, what time had I for its permanent dis- 
enchantments ? Counting myself the luckiest of the 
three, I felt I ought to take the lead in extricating 
us all from a painful domestic tangle. And I de- 
cided that the only thing to do was for the three of 
us to meet and try to reach some commonsense agree- 
ment that each could accept without any loss of self- 
respect or too unreasonable a sacrifice of advantages 
desired. 



WILL HE COME BACK ? 41 

People who discuss the play in my presence (never 
dreaming of my part in it) seem to have a curious 
impression of why I brought about this interview. 
I have heard some of them declare that I disliked 
Gilbert so much that I wanted to get rid of him at 
any price, and others, that I liked him so much that 
I was willing to martyr myself in the cause of un- 
dying love. I suspect that the author wobbles be- 
tween these two mutually exclusive explanations. 
However that may be, I vehemently repudiate them 
both, and say with force that they not merely go 
wide of the bull's eye but actually hit the wrong 
target. Neither a desire for revenge nor a desire for 
martyrdom prompted me. My sole incentive was 
common human decency. I did for Gilbert precisely 
what I should have done for any friend in trouble, 
and that was to help him to the best of my ability. 

The question of discarding him the way one dis- 
cards an old hat or dress never entered my head for 
a moment. True, I was willing to consider almost 
any settlement, from getting a divorce from Gilbert 
to inviting him back. On the whole, I think I should 
have preferred the latter (with suitable provisos) . 
But as I could hardly expect my individual prefer- 
ences to sway the destinies of two other people, the 
only rational thing to do v/as, as I have already said, 
to bring all concerned in the problem into one room, 
and let them hammer out a solution together. 



42 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

Accordingly, I paid an unexpected visit to Edith's 
flat, believing that there is nothing like a bold and 
sudden call, if you want all the cards put on the 
table. The sequel would no doubt have vindicated 
my plan, had not Edith unluckily been in the midst 
of an attack of jealousy. Even so, things turned 
out rather better than the end of the play implies. 
I confess to being much amused by the mystery of 
the question that tops the climax. In the real epi- 
sode, there was no mystery about it. Of course Gil- 
bert did not permanently link up his fate with a 
will o' the wisp like Jessie Dean. And of course 
he came back. But I will not deprive your readers 
of the pleasure of guessing to which one. Indeed, 
even if I wanted to tell, I could not do so without 
breaking inviolable confidences, besides giving- 
friends of mine who are sure to see this letter an un- 
mistakable clue to my identity. The point to grasp 
is that after Gilbert's return we all met once more 
and, Edith having recovered from her distemper, 
threshed the matter out thoroughly. We reached a 
settlement acceptable to us all. For a time we feared 
that the publication of Will He Come Back? would 
give us a disagreeable notoriety. But not a soul 
guessed at our connection with the plot, probably 
because domestic problems of the same kind arise 
oftener than we imagine. Finally, all three of us 
are still on the best of terms. And I can add without 



WILL HE COME BACK? 43 

exaggeration that as far as the particular crisis 
treated in the play is concerned, we may all be said 
to have lived happily ever afterwards. 

No doubt the author will feel ill-used at my re- 
bellious criticism. I shall not try to comfort him. 
Rebellion is the normal attitude of a character to- 
wards the character drawer, of a created being to- 
wards the creator. That is because the weakness of 
the newly born invention usually turns the inventor 
into a despot who cannot resist the cheap gratifica- 
tion of lording it over his creatures and moulding 
them after his own image. But the created have 
rights quite as definite as the creator, and when these 
rights are brutally trampled under foot, the retribu- 
tion is sure to be swift and fearful, as the Gothic 
automaton taught his master Frankenstein. Sic 
Semper Tyrannis. Had there been half a chance, 
Becky Sharp would have taught the same lesson to 
Thackeray who, though he could not boast a fifth 
of her brains or a tenth of her imagination, yet had 
the presumption to judge her by his own procrustean 
morality. Either for Becky's reasons or others 
equally strong, every Galatea is in as violent a re- 
volt against her Pygmalion as Eve was against her 
Jahveh. This antagonism is especially noticeable 
when the creator is male and the character created, 
female. For, even in our "advanced" days, most 
male authors still write under the influence of the 



44 WILL HE COME BACK ? 

coarse Elizabethan conception of women so frankly 
summed up in Othello : "You (women) are pictures 
out of doors, bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your 
kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being of- 
fended, players in your housewifery, and housewives 
in your beds." 

Needless to say, I do not charge my author with 
subscribing to this indecent opinion. My grudge 
against him is that he does not make it clear that 
when a woman cuts a Gordian knot, she may be 
actuated by simple common sense, and not always 
by some obscure motive of sex or sexlessness. But 
I am not so ungrateful as to forget that he has put 
into my mouth the pithy words: "Our fathers im- 
posed on the world a type of woman that suited 
them. Well, we are about to impose on the world a 
type of woman that will suit iis." Indeed, does not 
the very letter I am writing demonstrate the 
truth of these words and thus testify to their pro- 
phetic force? My strongest hope is that the author 
will take them as seriously as I do. If he does, he 
may join me in striving to end the iniquitous system 
that allows mankind to be governed, and the rela- 
tions between men and women to be fixed, through 
councils, courts, and legislatures in which the pres- 
ence and th6 voice of women are not expressly se- 

^"^^^- Yours faithfully, 

"Martha McCutcheon." 



